San Bruno Set To Debate Revitalization

Bill Workman, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Monday, June 7, 1999

1999-06-07 04:00:00 PDT SAN BRUNO -- San Bruno's second attempt in a decade to make redevelopment work for a blue-collar community long suspicious of the idea is expected to get a significant boost tonight from the City Council.

The council, meeting as the city's 10-month-old redevelopment agency, is set to adopt the boundaries of the proposed two-section project area, as well as the environmental impact report for the proposed $117 million revitalization program.

Tonight's City Hall meeting is expected to be packed, however, with redevelopment foes, including Joseph Welch, owner of dozens of downtown San Mateo Avenue properties and perhaps the largest owner of rental properties in the city.

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"Do you know how many cities have gone bankrupt with stuff like this?" Welch asked, rhetorically.

"My lawyer is sending the council a letter warning that they don't have a right to do this," said Welch, who has already threatened to take the city to court if redevelopment is approved.

Welch contends that in order to designate redevelopment project areas -- including San Mateo Avenue, one of the most ethnically diverse "mom-and-pop" commercial strips on the Peninsula -- the city has to declare them "blighted" to qualify under redevelopment law for tax-increment financing.

He agreed that downtown may be in need of some sprucing up, "but it is not blighted."

City officials have indicated that redevelopment in the downtown area would largely call for a major face-lift, including improved sidewalks, traffic signals, building remodeling and reconstruction of the San Mateo Avenue intersection with El Camino Real to allow for a left turn into southbound traffic.

In addition to downtown, other areas earmarked for redevelopment funds include seven older neighborhoods east of El Camino Real and south of Interstate 380; expansion of Tanforan Shopping Center to attract smaller shops to the complex; a 21-acre U.S. Navy property across El Camino Real from Tanforan; and a

sliver of hilltop land along Skyline Boulevard at San Bruno Avenue.

Final approval of a city ordinance to implement redevelopment is not expected until June 28, after the City Council has had a chance to respond in writing to comments from redevelopment critics.

In what was viewed as a measure of the animosity of some residents to the city's redevelopment schemes, the voters last month rejected a ballot proposal that would have lifted height limits to allow construction of a 500-room hotel on the Navy site.

The Navy is expected to put the site up for sale later this month to a private developer. The developer, still to be named, would be eligible for redevelopment financing of what some city officials now envision as a series of low-rise office buildings and affordable housing on the site.

As the redevelopment agency, the City Council is also expected tonight to act on a series of recommendations by the Citizens Project Area Committee that held public hearings in recent months on proposed redevelopment.

The recommendations include a key proposal to exempt residential neighborhoods earmarked for renewal from eminent domain takings by the city.

Even so, a number of Hispanic, Filipino and Tongan families who own or rent homes in and around the downtown area are said to be worried that their homes may be taken by redevelopment.

Many are parishioners of St. Bruno's Catholic Church, the oldest church in the city.

"They are fearful, they are not happy with what is happening," said the Reverend Rene Gomez, pastor of St. Bruno's, who said he expects several dozen parishioners to attend the council meeting.

"We are not attacking, not fighting the concept of redevelopment per se," said Gomez. Instead, he said, he will ask the council to postpone any action on redevelopment until assurances can be given to his parishioners that "they will not be forced to leave their homes unless they freely choose to do so."

Mayor Ed Simon said city officials have had difficulty competing with "misinformation" that he alleged parishioners were given at a recent church meeting.

"It's ludicrous to think we want to take their homes -- that's where we expect to get the (tax-increment money for redevelopment) when their homes go up in value," said the mayor.

It was an eminent domain controversy that helped sink redevelopment in 1989 when San Bruno voters turned down a $56 million plan to revive the city's aging industrial district along the Caltrain railroad tracks and to rehabilitate existing housing near downtown.

The City Council had approved the plan, but a citizens group, worried about possible use of eminent domain to acquire property over the objections of owners, put the issue on the ballot and blocked it.